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National acclaim for UWE Bristol graduate's energy-saving app for businesses

National acclaim for UWE Bristol graduate's energy-saving app for businesses

Issue date: 20 January 2017

A graduate from the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) has earned national recognition for an app he has designed to help organisations become more energy efficient.

Zak Ajia developed his GreenPad app last year after spotting an opportunity to help UK firms reduce the £500 million they waste on energy every year.

His app provides businesses with live energy consumption information, detecting wastages in real time. Current energy management tools available to firms only alert businesses to possible wastages retrospectively when unusual trends have been identified.

Zak, who developed the app as part of his London-based social enterprise GreenPad Enterprise, said: “Global energy demand is expected to increase by 37 per cent to 2035 and businesses are keen to become more energy efficient. There are also issues of increasing energy costs, energy scarcity and climate change so energy management is very important in today's world. UK businesses spend £2.4 billion on energy per year, of which 21 per cent is wasted, which equates to around £500 million.

“The app's main purpose is to detect real time business energy wastages and help companies become more energy savvy. As well as detecting signs of energy wastage, the application will also help businesses to reduce energy consumption, measure and monitor their carbon footprint and empower them to become cleaner.”

Zak graduated with a 2.1 in BSc Climate Change and Energy Management from UWE Bristol in 2013.

He said: “The university provided immense support for the project at its initial stage. UWE was supportive both tangibly and intangibly, and the success recorded today is owed to it.

“My time on the course provided me with technical and management skills which have been very useful to me in the launching and running of my business.”

More information about UWE Bristol's Environmental Resource Management degree course can be found here.